“I could not,” answered the girl, in the same low tone; “I was in my bed, unable to move hand or foot, unable to know night from day.  Cuthbert, the night I went forth to thee in the chantry our father missed me from the house.  He thought I had gone to meet Philip in the wood at night.  He reviled me cruelly, and I feared to tell him it was thou I had gone to see.  Then, I know not how, but I fear he struck me.  A great blackness came before mine eyes; and when I opened them again a week or more had passed, and I knew, as I began to understand what had chanced, that I could no longer remain beneath the roof of the Gate House.”

Cuthbert ground his teeth in sudden fury.

“Struck thee, my gentle sister!  Nay, I can scarce credit it; and were he any other than my father—­”

“But he is our father,” answered the girl gently.  “And truly methinks, Cuthbert, that his lonely brooding has something unhinged his mind.  Let us think of him only with pity.”

Cuthbert put his arm about her tenderly.

“Tell me the rest of thy story, sister.  How camest thou here so opportunely, to play the part of Amazon and save thy brother’s life?”

She shivered a little, as if afraid even to think what she had done, but her words were quietly and clearly spoken.

“That is soon told.  Old Martha nursed me back to health again, and our stern father hindered her not in her tendance of me.  And this very night we made our plans, and she put a concoction of herbs into his nightly potion, which caused him to sleep too sound to awake for any sound within or without the house.  Then we softly stole away without let or hindrance—­she to go to the Chase, I to walk across the moorland and forest as thou hadst bidden me, to find thee here.”

“And thou didst arm thyself ere thou wentest forth?”

She looked up with strange earnestness into his face.

“I know not if the thought were sin, Cuthbert,” she said, “but as I slipped through the dark house ere our flight, my eyes fell upon that pair of heavy pistols always loaded that our father keeps ever on the mantle shelf of the hall.  I thought of the lessons thou hadst given me in old days, and knew I could pull the trigger were I so minded, and send the bullet whizzing through the air.  I had no thought of harming any man as I put forth my hand and took one of the weapons.  I was thinking rather of myself.  I had heard men speak of perils worse than death that may beset weak and helpless women alone in the world.  I knew not if I might find thee as I hoped.  I could not but fear that some mischance might keep us sundered.  I thought of my father’s cruel wrath should he discover my flight, and pursue and overtake.  It seemed to me, standing in the darkness of the old Gate House, that it would be better to perish than to be dragged thither again to die of misery and harsh captivity.  I said within myself, ’Sure, if it be sin, it is one that God would pardon.  It is not well for me to go forth without some weapon which might end all, were it to be the less peril to die than to live.’  And so I took the pistol and carried it in my girdle.”